My god, it’s been ages since I posted anything here. Almost a month. Christ almighty, where is my motivation?
Well, I guess part of it can be chalked up to that seasonal syndrome of motivational dysfunction known as “spring fever”. Maybe it’s really a physical, neurological/endocrinal phenomenon related to the change in season. (Maybe one of you reading in this in the tropics or Southern Hemisphere can clear me up on this? Do the months of May and June also correspond to this particular sort of malaise?)
Or perhaps it’s merely a part of my cultural heritage, in which as early as grade school we are subtly encouraged to stop giving a damn during the last month or so of our annual scholastic commitments.
Yes, I’m coasting towards the end of a lot of my commitments teaching-wise, it’s true. I suppose my lack of blogging motivation may go hand-in-hand with the lagging in my creative teaching motivation.
Thankfully, this lack of inspiration has (paradoxically?) inspired me to have a look at another classic example of the fizzling-out of pedagogical motivation. To wit: this year, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to start what is often known as “a reflective teaching journal”. A idea popular with many teacher trainer types, and the subject of all manner of research papers and internet pontification.
This lasted all of about three months. The first few entries are brief at times, with little detail, but more or less complete, and you can tell that at the beginning I was taking it all a bit more seriously, making such notes to myself as these (both from 3 Feb 2009):
“Must exert more control. I need to go for ’stern but fair’. Not ‘petulant and pissy and vindictive’” [though it should be noted that a week later for the same group I seem to have written: "Much better, I think my 'drama queen' act last week may have actually helped: they were much more cooperative today"...]
or
“Off to a rocky start, but later we found our groove and the personalization exercises and the domino game seemed to be well-integrated and well-received–tomorrow we can start with some correction dictation of the more clamorous errors from free speaking”
Then there’s a page where I’ve written at the top: “I lost a week in there somewhere”, then it starts again, on the 23rd of February. That’s where it started to get a little squirrelly.
There are weeks where I seemed to be giving it a go with some degree of motivation intact, but these are interspersed with pages where I’d obviously gotten behind and was trying to make up for a week’s worth of lost time–things like “XYZ Company*–past cont./past simp. pictures, listening, rev.extreme adj.”. Or better yet: “Pepito*–review rel. pron., phr. verbs and”
Yeah, the XYZ entry there is an example of a “reflective” teaching journal with absolutely zero reflecting going on at all. Basically me jotting something down so as not to forget about it over the course of my million other classes that same day. The “Pepito” entry is even better–I didn’t even bother to finish the phrase.
I could blame it on the conditions I was usually writing in–on buses or in crowded subway cars going from class to class, making it impossible to write consistently. I suppose I could blame it on any number of things. Doesn’t matter. My teaching journal was a total failure.
I guess the important thing is that now, months after my latest attempt at a reflective teaching journal, with hindsight I’ve gleaned whatever little ideas that sprung up, improvised gambits and so forth that worked well, etc., etc. from my meager notes, and I reckon I’ll try to use them in the coming weeks as we draw this year here to a close.
Anyone else have any choice bits of “reflection” they’d like to share? Or tales of failure and redemption and things of that nature? Feel free to put them in the comments box.
Or if you haven’t tried and failed the “reflective teaching journal” thing, have a look at these tips for keeping one. (I think I had the biggest problem with tips 1 and 2.)
*Names changed to protect the innocent
